Excerpt from To Ride a Wild Pony (Novella)

TO RIDE A WILD PONY

A Novella by Marsh Cassady

CHAPTER 1

      Coast Boulevard is a narrow street stretching along the rocky shoreline. A number of small houses, greatly overpriced, perch along the eastern edge. When the sun is bright, the sea calm, waves lap gently into the beach. Yet often the sea is angry, smashing again and again, in thunderous claps against eroding earth.
      La Jolla itself is more constant. It is a moneyed area, where even the people behind the grocery carts in Vons project an air of wealth. Here in the Village one rarely hears of the day-to-day struggle. Rather, the talk is of investments, the stock market, weekend jaunts to Cancun or the Riviera.
      La Jollans do not often admit to being a part of San Diego. They attempt to mislead the unknowing into belief that the Village is an entity unto itself. Many residents actually believe this myth, fostered and nurtured by the United States Post Office Department which allows them to use their own separate name, rather than that of the city of which they are a part.
      Dennis Thompson had lived in the Village for more than thirty years; yet he knew he didn't belong. He had no pretensions of belonging. His roots were in the tenement houses of Brooklyn, with the perpetual smell of cooked cabbage, and cardboard thin walls that made neighbors' business everyone's business. That was where Dennis was spawned and where he grew to young adulthood. Only his talent for sketching got him out, gave him a scholarship to whatever university he chose to attend. He chose San Diego State. He was tired of the humidity of summer, the freezing sleet of winter in New York.
      Now he'd wasted his talent, traded it for security ... and for love, a rare commodity in the tenements of home, where people screamed and beat each other as a matter of course.
      Dennis was an early riser. He liked nothing better than to watch the sun float into the sky and slowly burn the morning mist from the sea. Before the sound of traffic and the awakening city intruded on the morning, he loved to walk along the sand and rocks, listening to the scree, scree of the sea gulls, the roar of the waves. When he closed his eyes, he imagined those waves to be sheets of rain, beating on the roof as it had in his youth. It was a comforting sound, perhaps the only comforting sound he remembered.
      In memory's eye he saw himself huddled under thin blankets, sketching, drawing, inventing cartoon knights who would ride their white horses up the tenement stairs and carry him off.
      On mornings such as this he would sigh for what might have been but now wasn't. Yet Dennis knew he was lucky. Most kids with beginnings like his never got out. And yet here he was, Thanks to Menolaus. Maybe that should be enough, he thought, but deep down inside knew that it couldn't be.
      Dennis was fifty-five years old and believed he'd pretty much wasted his life. When he was being particularly honest, he realized he couldn't blame anyone else but himself.
      He walked along the beach now as was his daily custom. Stocky, well-built, his body hard like a boxer's, he rarely gave his physical condition a thought. When he did, he chuckled at the fact that his and his lover's friends often expressed envy for his having to do so little to stay in shape. He wore running shorts and T-shirts, often torn and faded, in the summer, and baggy sweats in the winter. He wore them not as a reverse kind of snobbery as people were wont to do in a place like the Village, but because they were comfortable. He was an active man who loved to walk and run for the joy of it. Staying in shape was merely a side benefit.
      He was a physical man who loved to work with his hands, whether tinkering with a motor or touching his brush to canvas. Yet it had been so easy not to touch that brush to canvas.
      He half-walked, half-ran for what he knew to be just under seven miles, winding in and out around the coves and crannies of the beach, doubling back upon his own trail several times. He looked overhead, the sun still young and white in the sky. He knew his lover would soon be up. He wanted to be there today when he came downstairs.
      He reversed direction and headed home. Nodding to one of many dark-suited surfers whose cars now lined the sidewalk, he jogged across the street and up the three steps to the porch.
      He stooped to gather up The Union-Tribune, The L.A. Times and The La Jolla Light. Tucking the papers under his arm, Dennis slipped off his running shoes, banged them together to dislodge damp sand and opened the door.
     Once inside, he set the shoes under a small table in the hallway and tossed the newspapers onto the coffee table. Menolaus apparently hadn't come downstairs. Dennis crossed through the living room, his feet sinking in the deep pile of the carpet, a frothy blue.
      He spread the thin curtain at the bay window overlooking the ocean and watched the surfers, like shiny black crayfish, crawl with their boards toward the water.
     He sighed, turned, ran his fingers across the mantle of the marble fireplace, filled with bleached driftwood. Idly, he recorded the fact that it needed dusting. He thought to take a quick shower in the downstairs half-bath, so as not to waken Menolaus, in case he still lay in bed.  
   It was only Men's second day home; the doctor had warned him not to overdo, yet not to become inactive. Dennis thought that later they'd go somewhere for lunch. They hadn't done that in ages. La Valencia Hotel maybe; he knew Men loved the paella there. Dennis made a mental note to check Men's diet, to see if that was all right.
      He worried about Men. He never took care of himself. Even in retirement, he seemed to keep pushing. He could never simply relax, not for more than a minute or two. There was his book on the evolution of Greek government, his correspondence with dozens of former students. Dennis had always felt jealous of that. But finally he accepted that it didn't mean much. And it occupied Men's time.
      Sometimes Dennis wished they owned a television set. But they didn't; the only one they'd ever owned had worn out years before. And that was okay. Occasionally, of course, there was the PBS program on art and artists Dennis read about. And there were plays and other cultural programs. But he and Men had both agreed long ago that for the most part television was simply pap for the masses.
      As he stepped from his clothes — which though dirty, he folded carefully and lay on the back of the olive-green commode — and then into the shower, he thought of all those times in the past, when he was stuck at home all day. Sometimes he was entertaining Boris; at other times he found he couldn't paint, and turned on the ancient black-and- white set in his and Men's bedroom.
      He'd become addicted to the soaps and was fearful that Men would discover him, eyes glazed over, listening to all the problems of the world in each of these tiny microcosms. As he turned on the water, first as hot as he could stand it, and directed the spray directly against his chest, he wondered if that were redundant. Tiny microcosms. Micro did mean tiny, after all.
      Soaping himself, he thought then of the microcosms of his life the encapsulated universe of his few blocks of Brooklyn; the few weeks in greater New York; his three semesters at San Diego State, and finally, his years with Men. And he felt somehow that he'd never experienced what he should have.
      That was silly, he told himself. Many people he'd known in the past would give anything to live as he and Men now lived, never wanting for anything material, able to do as they pleased. Before he'd met Men, even before Men had made full professor, Europe and Asia and the rest of the Americas were places from fairy tales. They existed only in the imagination as did the handsome and virile knights of his fantasies. Now he'd visited foreign countries on all three continents.
      Using a sponge instead of a washcloth—because it was rougher and more likely to sand away scales of dead skin—he vigorously rubbed his body from face to toes.
      He adjusted the spray till it became lukewarm and finally stinging cold. He turned it off and grabbed a fluffy bath towel from the rack.
      After drying off, he toweled away the steam in the center of the mirror, opened the bathroom door to dispel the mist and glanced at his reflection. He was pleased with what he saw craggy features, dark blond hair, a lightly furred body, the hair more brown than the blond of his head. He squirted shaving cream into his palm, rubbed it over his face, took out the razor that matched the one in the full-bath upstairs, and scraped away his day-old growth of whiskers, the only place where grey showed.
      He rinsed his face, splashed himself with lotion and a hint of Aramis. He placed his clothes into the hamper, tiptoed upstairs and into his and Men's bedroom. He heard water running in the bathroom, knew his lover was finally up, hurriedly dressed in loose-fitting slacks, light brown, and a yellow knit shirt, his concession to any dress code La Valencia might have.
      He trotted down the steps and into the kitchen, where he filled the Mr. Coffee with decaf and water for Men, not the real stuff since his heart attack, and set the kettle to boil for tea for himself. He reached into the cupboard, pulled out the copper canister, and decided on Lemon Zinger.
      He popped four slices of sourdough bread into the toaster to wait till Men arrived downstairs. He took a moment then to collect his thoughts. Bill Rizzo had asked him to stop by the gallery. He didn't know why; he hoped, of course, that Rizzo would finally consent to take some of his paintings. But it was a private kind of thought, at least up till this point.
     Rizzo had called while Men was still in the hospital but out of danger. He'd said there was no rush, but there was something he wanted to discuss. Dennis tucked the thought into a cubbyhole somewhere in the recesses of his mind, and took it out only for an instant or so two or three times a day. The thought was to be savored, not worn out by constant use.
     But now that Men was better, nearly himself as Dr. Stevens had told Dennis yesterday, he held the thought of Rizzo's request a little longer. Yes, today would be the day he decided. When they were out to lunch, he and Men would stop by. The gallery was on Girard, only a few blocks from the hotel where they'd eat. Men could wander around and look at the paintings while Dennis and Rizzo went into the office.
      The teakettle whistled; Dennis grabbed a stoneware mug from the cabinet beside the sink. He poured the hot water and then began to dunk the bag. He remembered what Men had told him the first time he'd seen him make tea.
     "Dunk it, Denny. Up and down and up and down. Infuse the water with flavor. Don't try to drown the damn bag by dousing all that water on top."
      That's what Dennis had always done, tossed in the bag and filled the cup with water. Now it had become a habit to do it as Men had suggested. But frankly, Dennis thought, he couldn't tell a bit of difference. But it was such a little thing, and if Men felt it was best, why not? Wasn't that what a relationship was all about? Pleasing your partner? Making little concessions that hardly mattered?
      As he raised the cup to his lips, he heard Men coming down the stairs. "Morning," he said as he walked into the living room. "Sleep all right?"
      He felt a rush of tenderness, as if he wanted to protect Men from all the bad things that could ever happen. And yet he knew Men was the one who had protected him for more than three-and- a-half decades.
      But now it was the thought of Men's mortality, of Dennis' own mortality, that intensified his feelings. Most times he could block out those feelings, replace them with the mundane. But not now. He realized for only the second or third time ever that Men was old; he was really getting old, his face deeply lined, sagging pouches under his eyes.
      Maybe Men's physical size contributed to the feelings of protectiveness. Men was a little under five-feet, five. But in all the years they'd been together, Dennis never thought of him as a little man. Not until lately.
      He wore a pair of grey slacks that hung loosely. He'd lost weight in the hospital, at first unable to eat, translucent liquid in tubes running into his arm. Even his shirt was outsized now, a blue, button-down with the ever present tie. Just as Dennis always wore "comfortable" clothes, Men said he felt naked without his tie. Broadly striped in shades of gray and blue, the one he wore today was drawn too tight at the neck, accentuating the shirts ill-fit, making Dennis think of a little boy dressing up in his father's clothing.  
   "I put on the coffee; it's almost done. Would you like me to bring you a cup? And some toast."
      Men sat in the white rattan couch, picked up the Times and glanced at the headlines. "It scares me," he said.
      "What does?" Dennis asked, stepping briefly into the room, arranging magazines on the end table beside where Men sat—San Diego Magazine, Newsweek, The Advocate. There was a time, Dennis thought, not so long before, when the latter would have been kept out of sight. It no longer mattered.
      "The state of the world. The way things are."
      "Don't read the paper."
     "Bury my head in the sand? Goddamn it, Dennis, be serious. All my life, all my life I've been concerned. I just can't turn it off."      "All right, all right, I'm sorry." Why did this always happen? Why did they always bicker? No matter what he said or Men said, it always ended like this. He wanted to drop it; it was too late.
      "Christ, Dennis, what's wrong with you?" Men asked. "Don't you know we could be blown to hell or get radiation sickness from some damn nuclear plant?" He shook the paper angrily, the wrinkles disappearing.      Dennis sighed. He didn't want to stir things up. Not now, not with Men just home. "It could happen," Men continued. Dennis realized there was no stopping him, and despite himself, he began to get angry. "San Onofre's not that far away. Suppose there was an accident—another Three-Mile Island. Or just plain air pollution. Sometimes now you look out the window and see a filthy yellow mist hovering over everything. Some morning we'll walk outside and not be able to breathe."
      "Come on, Men, let me get you some coffee."
      "I'm sorry." He folded the paper, placed it beside him and shook his head. "I thought at my age I was supposed to accept. Remember, remember that poem, Dennis?"
     "Yes," Dennis answered. "I remember." It was Men's poem, one of his many poems. Layers upon layers, exposed one by one over the time they'd known each other. They'd been together nearly five years, or was it more, before Dennis even knew Men wrote. He knew immediately the poem Men meant. "This Easing" it was called, written a decade before. Dennis claimed the sentiment as his own. Maybe because it was so foreign to his nature. Maybe because it was something to yearn for.

       "I see it in their bearing," Dennis quoted.
       "hear it in their voices.

      They nod, smile;
      in wrinkled faces a certainty.

      They follow patterns—
      the geometry of snowflakes,
      concentric circles in a pond."

Men joined in for a line or two, then stopped.

      "Similar, so similar,
       they talk on street corners,
       rest on benches.

      Is it a contentment I see,
      a wisdom?

     Old women, old men
      (quiet ones who helped to build
      this path)
      will time instill in me as well
      this easing?"
     Men chuckled, the sound surprisingly deep for a man his size. "How do you do it?" he asked. "Your memory—your memory's phenomenal. Sometimes I can't even remember the names of our closest friends."
      "How about that coffee?" Dennis asked.
      Men smiled. "Okay, Mom," he kidded. "But let's forego the toast. I can't quite face food yet."
      Dennis walked back to the kitchen, grabbed a mug exactly like his, a unicorn etched on the side. "Later then," he called as he poured the steaming liquid. "I thought we might go to lunch. Would you like that?"
      "No, Dennis, I don't really think so. I just want to sit and do nothing." Dennis handed him the mug, pulled out the chair to the secretary desk in the corner and sat down, occasionally sipping his tea.
      "Dr. Stevens says it's okay, if you don't overdo."
      "I'd rather stay home." Men's voice was clipped, the last word spoken at a higher pitch. Dennis knew he was being obstinate. Is that what old age was then? Obstinacy, not "easing," not acceptance.
      "It'll do you good. To get out and see people. To be among the living." Dennis was frightened; Men had always been so active.
      "No." He picked up the newspaper once more, opened it, folded it in half and placed it on his crossed knee. He looked so frail.
      "I thought we'd go to La Valencia."
      "I don't want lunch. Can't you understand?" His voice had almost a pleading quality.
      "I want what's best for you."
      "I have no appetite." His eyes were clear, light blue, a contrast to his dark complexion, his skin the golden color of roasted fowl.
      And because he cared so much, Dennis lost his temper. "Just going to give up and die, are you?" And immediately he was sorry; the effect of his words were like a physical assault. Men's face drained of color, his mouth drew down at the corners.
      "I don't want to go anywhere, damn it," Men finally said. "If that's what you mean by giving up and dying, then that's what I'm going to do."
      Suddenly, Dennis shivered. Men really could die; he almost had. And that would mean—What would it mean? Dennis asked himself. And for the first time the thought touched him, barely into his consciousness. Quickly, he pushed it away.
      "I figured we could stop at the gallery as well."
      "The gallery? What do you mean?" Men's voice held a hint of petulance, a new thing, like that thought that had almost surfaced, and Dennis wanted to push it aside as well.
      "Bill Rizzo's." Dennis voice was patient. "Remember when he stopped in to see you last week at Scripps? He told you he'd called me and said he wanted to talk." There was no response. "I thought we'd eat and walk to the gallery. Dr. Stevens—"
      "The hell with what Stevens thinks. Damn it, Dennis, you're treating me like a three-year-old." He shrugged. "Again, I apologize. I'm sorry." He smiled, or tried to smile. "Why did he want to see you?" he asked.
      "Who?"
      "Rizzo, isn't that who you said?"
      Dennis stood up, took his own mug from the desk, reached for Men's. "More coffee?"
    Men ignored the question. "What do you suppose he wants?"
      Dennis tried to breathe in; his chest felt tight. "I'd hoped he'd want to see some of my work."
      "Don't get your hopes up."
      As quickly as it had come, the tension in his chest was gone. What he felt now he could deal with anger. He strode to the kitchen with the mugs. "Why should I get my hopes up, huh?" He turned on the water, hard, splashing the front of his shirt and pants. Quickly, he turned it off, went back toward the living room. "Nothing I've ever done has amounted to shit."
      "Come on, Dennis. Come on."
      "Yeah, I know." He walked to the window, glanced outside without really seeing anything. "I'm fifty-five years old, Men." He turned. "Look at me."
      "So go see him; I guess it can't hurt."
      "Will you go along?" He felt vulnerable; he knew he was close to pleading.
      "To the gallery? What for?"
    "To lunch, damn it. And then to the gallery." He expelled a harsh breath of air. "I thought you could look at the paintings while Bill and I talked. I didn't want you to hold my hand."
      "What is it, Dennis? What's wrong? I've never seen you this way before."
      He didn't answer at first; then his voice was quiet. "You might have died. You might die." A sob escaped before he knew it was there.
      "My God, don't you think I know that?" Men's voice had the slightest of quivers. "Jesus, I lay there for days, unable to do anything for myself, except think. Wonder. Would I live through this? Would I get better? And even if I did, what about the next time?" He pushed away the papers, giving up any pretense of further interest. "I'd look at those monitors; I didn't know what the hell they meant. But I was fascinated by them. What were all the little secrets they held? Did they know I was going to live? Did they predict I was going to die?" He clasped his hands between his knees.
      "I didn't mean to remind you— I didn't mean—"
      "There's nothing to think about. Except how old you are and how much time you have left. You can't exert yourself. You can't even shave."
      Dennis' mouth felt dry. "I'm not trying to be selfish. You know that. But this may be my last chance. Thirty-five years, Men. And I've really gotten nowhere. Who else do you know who'd stick to something for thirty-five years without getting anywhere?"      "You did other things, Dennis. My God, you almost single-handedly raised Boris. I'm not the fatherly type; you are. He was more your son than mine."
      "That's nonsense."
      "Is it? Who did he always come to with his problems? Who did he kiss first thing every morning? Who did he ask to tuck him in at night?"
      "I never thought about it; I didn't."
      "I'm not blaming you; don't you see I'm grateful?"
      "I could have done more; I could have done so much more."
      "Couldn't we all?"
    "I can't talk you into going to lunch."
      "No, Dennis, you can't."
      "I only want what's best."  
   "Give me some credit, for God's sake. I just don't feel like it, okay?"
      "Jesus, Men. I'll go by myself. To the gallery. Not to lunch."
      "You'll do all right."
      "Sure, I always do, don't I?" He heard the sarcasm in his own voice. From feeling so good this morning, his mood had completely shifted. He had wasted his life. He'd quit school in his sophomore year. He didn't need college, he thought. He could take art classes, and that would be enough. He could use the time to paint. And to take care of Boris. Then the caring, the parenting, became the excuse for not doing anything else.
      His paintings were stacked in the extra bedroom upstairs. He'd go look at them, figure out which were the best. Which Rizzo would like.
      He trudged up the stairs, leaving Men to his papers. Was Dennis fooling himself? Probably. They'd known Rizzo for years; he'd never expressed an interest before. He tried to avoid the topic of Dennis' art every time he or Men brought it up.
    He thought then of Men's parents, Nikkos and Theodora Aradopolos. They got along; they always got along, never seeming to fight or bicker. And they were accepting of his and Men's situation. He'd been tense when he met them, worried that because they were from the Old Country, from Greece, they wouldn't understand. But they had. They'd treated him like their very own son.
     They'd died long ago. He hadn't thought of them in years. He wondered why he had now, and then he knew. There were parallels, Nikkos and his son; Theodora and Dennis. Not the obvious parallel, not that Dennis had become a wife. Not by any means; he was too much of a man for that. Straights often had trouble accepting the fact that there wasn't always one dominant and one submissive.
      No, it was more that Nikkos and Men were the prosaic ones, Theodora and Dennis the dreamers. But was that fair? Wasn't it oversimplification?
      He opened the door; the room was filled with paintings. Where should he begin? He didn't know. He decided the rational thing to do would be to wait and see what Rizzo said. After that would come time for decisions.
      He closed the door, walked to the bedroom, picked up the phone and dialed the number he'd memorized immediately after Rizzo's call.

Copyright Marsh Cassady, 2001 (as part of Brass Pony)

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